Day: May 22, 2023

The arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in March was the first time a Western journalist had been held on espionage charges in post-Soviet Russia — but it opened a floodgate of memories for Nicholas Daniloff.  Daniloff was working as a journalist in the Soviet Union in 1986 when he was snatched off…

Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was briefly cut off from the power grid Monday, its Russian administrators and the Ukrainian atomic agency said. The incident marked the seventh time that the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, had been cut off from the power grid since invading Russian forces took control of the plant…

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Monday that his country could withdraw from Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), in a fresh show of discontent over the lack of support from its ally Russia. Yerevan has grown increasingly frustrated over what it calls Russia’s failure to protect Armenia in the face of military threats from…

The head of Russia’s Belgorod region which borders Ukraine, claimed Monday that a Ukrainian “sabotage group” had infiltrated the region, while anti-Kremlin Russians fighting alongside Ukraine’s forces appeared to take responsibility.  “A VSU [armed forces of Ukraine] sabotage group entered the territory of Grayvoron district,” Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram, referring to a…

Belarusian authorities have pardoned dissident journalist Roman Protasevich, the state-run Belta news agency reported Monday.  “I have signed all the documents about my pardon literally just now. This is, of course, simply wonderful news,” Belta quoted Protasevich as saying.  Protasevich, 27, was arrested in 2021 when Belarusian authorities forced his EU-bound plane to land in Minsk,…

President Vladimir Putin has agreed on the sale of a majority stake in the Russian side of splintered tech giant Yandex to three sanctioned billionaires and the state-owned VTB Bank, the news websites The Bell and Meduza reported Sunday, citing four unnamed sources close to the company. Yandex, often referred to as the “Russian Google,”…

The occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been reconnected to Ukraine’s electricity grid again after being offline for several hours, officials in Kyiv said on Monday. Earlier Monday Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom had accused Russia of carrying out attacks that caused a power cut.  It said it was the seventh time the plant entered “blackout mode”…

Russian forces targeted the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro overnight with 16 missiles and 20 attack drones, Ukraine’s army said Monday. The attacks on troops and infrastructure were carried out by various types of missiles and Iranian-made Shahed drones, the general staff wrote on Facebook, saying its air defenses had destroyed all the drones and…

Russia has exported almost 20% more coal by sea so far this year than during the run-up and early months of its invasion of Ukraine, the Kommersant business daily reported Monday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the data. Russia shipped 69.9 million metric tons of the polluting fuel from ports in January-April 2023, or…

Russia’s Deputy Science Minister Pyotr Kucherenko has died months after a prominent journalist recalled him criticizing the invasion of Ukraine in private conversations. Kucherenko, 46, fell seriously ill on board a flight returning from Cuba on Saturday, Russia’s Science and Higher Education Ministry said Sunday.  The flight made an emergency landing in southern Russia but doctors who…